Slasher
Description Slashers are the most common Necromorph form encountered in the game. Their main weapons are the two blade arms coming out of their shoulders, with two pairs of grabbing arms coming out of the abdomen. They attack through pure melee combat (with the exception of the Female slasher, which can also shoot acidic spheres a small distance.), and when up close, like to grab Isaac and bite into his neck. Enhanced Slashers are created when an Infector infects a host, and are characterized as having louder growls and being black or dark brown in appearance with glowing eyes. Enhanced Slashers are stronger, faster and more aggressive. Their melee capabilities combined with sudden bursts of speed against their victims makes Slashers quite dangerous when they catch Isaac up close and in numbers. Slashers are normally seen in groups and are seldom caught alone unless they were just created by an Infector or in some cases chasing down an unfortunate victim. They also like to play dead to surprise their victims, and are capable of limited locomotion even with both their legs missing, dragging themselves along with their claws; some start out like this. Additionally, some Slashers are later created from humans in a military RIG suit of a similar design to Isaac's. These suits had stasis modules which have become fused with the body as a result of the infection process. As a result, military suit slashers are insanely fast, capable of rushing across a long room in only a couple seconds. Other slashers are former security staff of the Ishimura, and have the remnants of body armour on their legs. This armour makes it virtually impossible to dismember a leg before the slasher has closed the distance between itself and Isaac; aiming for the arms instead is greatly recommended. Fortunately these particular variants of slasher are few and far between. Slashers are easily recognized by their distinctive appearance and their loping and flailing gait when running, both of which also give them a distinctive shadow. Image:Dead Space Ripper.jpg|Isaac battles Slashers Image:Slasher concept.jpg|Concept Art Image:Surrounded.jpg|Isaac is surrounded by Slashers Image:Slashers dismembered.jpg|Isaac faces a group of Slashers Image:Dismembering limbs.jpg|Isaac dismembers Slashers Image:Playing dead.jpg|Don't be fooled Variants Male One of the most common types of Necromorphs encountered, they brandish their blades and charge towards their victims en masse as their primary means of killing. Simply shoot their limbs off for an easy kill. It's also possible to trick them into playing dead, at which point you can just run over and crush them into a pulp with a well-placed stomp; you may, however, prefer a ranged kill to avoid their arms. The nature of the victim determines, to a degree, the Necromorph itself: *The weakest are Slashers made out of Ishimura civilians, and are third only to Super Slashers and Twitchers in their charge speed. These Slashers's blades are also made by having the blades come out of the hands of the corpse, unlike the other Slashers. *Slashers that were formerly engineering personnel can be seen wearing the remains of their overalls; they have a slower charge but are slightly more resilient to damage. *Slashers made out of Hydroponic workers have limbs that are easier to remove, but require more dismemberment than other slashers. *Finally security personnel that have fallen prey to Necromorph infection have an armoured uniform remaining around their legs, making them very resilient to leg dismemberment, combined with their tendency to charge early makes the latter especially dangerous. Female Female Slashers have the same attacks and behavior of a Male, but they also have the ability to spit acidic spheres that explode on contact. They possess only two arms (as shown) as their normal arms have been directly mutated to have the blades grow out of them. This gives them a slightly more distinctive, human-like appearance, and makes it easier to determine them from Male Slashers. Enhanced Fast and deadly - two words that describe the Enhanced Slasher well. An Enhanced Slasher is made whenever an Infector infects a corpse. The first enhanced Slasher Isaac encounters is in Chapter 2: Intensive Care at the Morgue, which also happens to be what was formerly the corpse of the Ishimura's Captain, Benjamin Matthius. The flamethrower seems decently effective against them, but stay back; they can deal some serious damage, even on the Easy difficulty, easily taking out half of Isaac's health (in an unupgraded RIG) in a short flurry of attacks. Twitcher See Twitcher Hunter See Hunter Strategy These guys seem to be the bread and butter enemy in Dead Space. You can deal with them in several ways. Chop their legs off to kill at your leisure or blow away their arms. Against two or more of them you can consider using a crowd control weapon like a Line gun when you clump them together. * Cutting off both arms will instantly kill the Slasher. Stasis and a precision weapon (preferably the plasma cutter) will do the job. A slasher with one arm will have half the attack speed, half the damage, therefore posing half the threat. *Cutting off one or both legs will incapacitate the creature and force it to resort to crawling after Clarke. Be sure to finish the job afterwards by cutting off the arms. *Decapitation causes the creature to wildly swing at Clarke in a frenzy, in hopes of hitting him. Eventually, they recover from the effects and will behave normally again, even while headless. A Slasher decapitating Isaac.Ud2mm_8R-tY *Not recommended to fight in melee combat as they are noted to block incoming blows, and can take more than a dozen hits to kill (much more on higher difficulties). If you must fight one in melee, use Stasis so the creature cannot fight back. *Slashers sometimes like to feign death upon taking minor damage, and will come back to life when you turn your back or shoot at it. *Whenever you happen to come across a slasher body inconspicuously lying on the floor, shoot the arms. It's another of the Slasher's "playing dead" tricks, and they will jump at Isaac if he gets too close. *Clarke can also use his Telekinesis ability to check that the seemingly "dead" slasher is actually dead. If he can pick it up, it's dead. If he can't pick it up, take aim at the arm joints and fire away, give it a good foot-stomp, or use Telekinesis to launch a nearby sharp object (this includes severed Slasher blades) at its arms. *They are known to ambush Clarke from vents, and the moment a vent bursts open with the fan flying out him, you'll have a few precious seconds to ready his weapon. *In addition to that, some Slashers, rather than charge at Clarke head-on, will instead leap into a nearby vent (where they won't be exposed to danger) and travel to a vent closer to him and burst out from that vent to attack you. Memorize the location of vents in the room he's being attacked in by multiple Slashers, stay away from them and listen for persistent bumping sounds in the ventilation system. *A Slasher can grab Isaac, prompting an action sequence that, when followed through, Isaac shakes it off and whacks it's head off. *A female Slasher can't use its projectile attack when it doesn't have its head on its shoulders. :Slashers also have a wide variety of responses depending on which body parts are severed. ::*If you decapitate a Slasher, this will not kill them. It only makes it much harder for the Slasher to find you. They will flail around and slash wildly in an attempt to find Isaac. This can be used to your advantage with large groups as they can attack other Necromorphs in their confusion. They will eventually recover and act normally however. ::*Severing both arms seems to immediately kill slashers and is the recommended way to dispatch them. ::*Severing both legs will cause them to use their blade arms to crawl along the floor to try and attack Clarke. This slows them down to make them more manageable and makes the arms an easier target. However, it is very easy to lose track of them once this happens, especially in areas with many obstacles. ::*A less common phenomenon happens when a left leg and right arm (or vice-versa) remain on a Slasher. It will use its remaining blade arm as a kind of crutch and hobble after Isaac. Trivia *Interestingly, in the movie Dead Space: Downfall, the creation of male Slashers differs in comparison to their creation in the game. In the game, the male corpse's arms shift downwards to the abdomen while the bladed arms burst out at the shoulders, whereas male Slashers in the movie have the blades burst directly out of the palms of their hands while a new pair of grabbing claws burst out from the abdomen. However, some of the male Slashers in the game have the blades coming out of their palms like the movie depicts them, including the grabbing claws depicted in the film, so what becomes of the corpse's arms is considered random. *In chapter 10, an Enhanced Slasher appears to be playing dead in one of the male restrooms of the crew's quarters. But when shot, it actually turns out to be a dead Necromorph as it does not attack the player. This was probably put in to fool the player. *It should also be noted that while a good portion of necromorphs are naked, the ones in the movie happear to remain most of their original clothing. Category:Necromorphs